Trueman. You mean Paine's Common Sense, I suppose—yes, yes, there you manifest something like common sense, Mr. Loveyet.
Loveyet. 'Tis no such thing, sir; it lately took three speakers, and much better ones than Paine, no less than three whole days, to prove that consolidation and annihilation are one and the same thing.
Trueman. An execrable Triumvirate—a scandalum magnatum to all public bodies: I suppose they and their adherents are now sitting in Pandemonium, excogitating their diabolical machinations against us.
Loveyet. A pack of nonsensical stuff!
Trueman. Harkee, Mr. Loveyet, I will propound a problem to you. We will suppose there are two parallel lines drawn on this floor, which, notwithstanding they may be very contiguous to each other, and advance ad infinitum, can never approximate so near as to effect a junction, in which fundamental axiom all mathematicians profess a perfect congruity and acquiescence:—now, to elucidate the hypothesis a little, we will suppose here is one line; and we will further suppose here is another line. [Draws his cane over Loveyet's feet, which makes him jump.] Now we will suppose that line is you, and this line is compos'd, form'd, constituted, made up of discernment, political knowledge, public spirit, and true republicanism,—but, as I predicated antecedently, that line is you—[Striking his cane on Loveyet's feet.] You must not forget that.
Loveyet. S'death, sir, do you mean to make a mathematical instrument of me, to try experiments with?
Trueman. Now take notice—as the East is to the West, the North Pole to the South ditto, the Georgium Sidus to this terraqueous globe, or the Aborigines of America to the Columbians of this generation, so is that line to this line, or Mr. Loveyet to true wisdom and judgment; sometimes appearing to verge towards a coalition with them, but never to effect it. There, sir,—in this argument, you have a major, a minor and a conclusion, consonant to the received principles of logic.
Loveyet. Confound your senseless comparisons; your problems, your mathematics, and your Georgium Sidus.
Humphry. Aye, confound your gorgon hydras, I say too.
Loveyet. Here you have been spending your breath to prove—what?—that I am not a rational human being, but a mathematical line.